Relationship Between a Range of Tissue Temperature and Local Oxygen Uptake in the Human Forearm. I. Changes Observed Under Resting Conditions12

Abstract

The advent of the use of hypothermia as an adjunct to surgery has revived interest in the effect of alterations of local temperature on tissue metabolism. In the early part of this century, several investigators (1, 2) performed in v4tro studies and found that increasing the temperature of muscle slices raised their oxygen consumption, while an opposite effect was produced by decreasing the temperature. The Q10 of this relationship was generally found to be slightly above the value of two (2). However, one limitation of the work was that the absolute oxygen consumption was closely dependent upon the composition of the bath in which the tissue was suspended.In more recent years a number of workers (3-5) have noted an increase in local circulation with exposure of a limb to high external temperatures and a decrease with cooling of the tissues. From such evidence it has been concluded that the alterations in blood flow produced by local heat and cold are due both to the direct action of these agents on the blood vessels and to changes in the metabolic needs of the tissues being supplied. However, it is apparent that data on the circulation alone are not sufficient for the determination of tissue oxygen utilization, and that for this purpose, the simultaneous measurement of the quantity of oxygen removed from the blood as it passes through the structures under study is likewise essential.Studies on the effect of hypothermia on the whole organism have also contributed to the elucidation of the problem. In the rat (6) and in the dog (7,8) rise in oxygen consumption, corresponding to a stress reaction developed in the. body, and then a fall as cooling is continued. If shivering, which is elicited in the first phase, is prevented by the use of barbiturates, the increase in oxygen consumption is no longer observed (7). In poikilothermic animals hypothermia produces only a reduction in oxygen consumption (9).The purpose of this paper is to present the effects of local heating and cooling on the resting oxygen uptake of the tissues of the forearm. METHODThe investigation was performed on 17 healthy subjects between the ages of 19 and 51 years. Thirteen were males and four were females. In all, 27 experiments were done, their duration averaging six hours. In this period no food was served to the subject other than one or two small chocolate bars.Three different procedures were carried out during each experiment: 1) blood flow recordings on a six inch segment of forearm enclosed in a venous occlusion plethysmograph, according to the technique previously described3 (10) ( Figure 1); 2) determinations of oxygen content of venous blood from deep or superficial veins of the forearm; and 3) studies of muscle, subcutaneous tissue, skin, and rectal temperatures, using thermocouples. The temperature of the water in the plethysmograph (bath temperature) was first maintained at 450 C. and then lowered to 320 and finally to 17°,4 and at each level all of the above procedures were done, together with blood pressure and pulse rate readi...

Relationship Between a Range of Tissue Temperature and Local Oxygen Uptake in the Human Forearm. Iii. Changes Observed After Anaerobic Work, in the Postexercise Period*†

“…were approximately the same as the figures reported in previous papers (4,5). The difference observed between the average resting oxygen uptake at a bath temperature of 45°and that at 28 to 300 (Table I) was found to be statistically significant, with a p < 0.01 (8).…”

Local Temperature Changes and Human Skeletal Muscle Metabolism.

“…No significant differences were observed between the data. This is in contrast with measurements obtained on the forearm at rest were a Q 10 of 2-2.5 was found for O • 2 (Abramson et al, 1957;Abramson et al, 1958;Binzoni et al, 1999;Binzoni et al, 2001). A possible explanation of this discrepancy, is that in Koga et al (1997) (Janssen et al, 2000).…”

“…One of the first measurements of human muscle O • 2 at rest ("forearm") as a function of local T were performed by Abramson et al (1957) ("forearm") immediately after 5 minutes arterial occlusion, compared to the control condition with no arterial occlusion. The increase of O…”

Local Temperature Regulation of Microtissue Clearance from Rat Skeletal Muscle

“…Thus, the data of several authors, 16 ' 18 who found clear changes in muscle blood flow over the entire physiological temperature range, might be explained by specific opening of shunts due to increase in temperature. In our present study, the increase in clearance rates clearly indicates increase in nutritional flow with an increase in temperature.…”